The U.S. economy has a love-hate relationship with its ageing population. In the long term, an older population is a headache: It means a shrinking labor pool leading to slower growth, and increased social care costs. <\/p>\n
On the other hand, the United States\u2019s older generations are the ones\u2014directly or indirectly\u2014keeping the economy out of a recession at the present moment. <\/p>\n
Take the labor market. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond<\/a>, 97% of net private-sector job creation in 2025 was in health care and social assistance. January\u2019s jobs report was much the same: Of the 130,000 jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a> reported the economy added in the first month of 2026, 82,000 were in health care. <\/p>\n There\u2019s also the matter of spending. As well as being key consumers, baby boomers are the wealthiest generation in history. People aged 55 and over own 73% of the nation\u2019s entire wealth, and 31% of U.S. wealth is owned by people aged 70 or older, according to Fed data<\/a>. And where is all that wealth being held? The eye-watering sums being funnelled into AI capex had to come from someone<\/a>. <\/p>\n Boomers\u2014particularly wealthy older people\u2014are \u201cdriving the train\u201d when it comes to the economy right now, economists told Fortune. If boomers sneeze, the rest of the economy catches a cold. It\u2019s not a comfortable balance to sit in.<\/p>\n Reliable consumers<\/p>\n Wall Street has continually expressed its pleasant surprise at how remarkably well consumers have held up since the pandemic. Still, more recent data points have prompted discussion of a K-shaped economy: The idea that the fortunes of wealthy consumers and those on the lower end of the income scale are increasingly diverging. <\/p>\n Moody\u2019s chief economist Mark Zandi is of the opinion that without wealthy consumers<\/a>\u2014indeed without older, wealthy consumers\u2014demand would collapse and the U.S. would be heading toward a recession: \u201cThey\u2019re driving the train.\u201d <\/p>\n In January, Zandi analyzed Fed data and highlighted that 59% of all consumer spending now comes from the top 20% of earners. In an exclusive interview with Fortune, he added that people over 50 are doing the \u201cbulk of spending,\u201d and that trend has increased steadily over the years. As such, the economy\u2019s reliance on a small cohort of spenders is rising.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been looking at spending based on income, but you can do similar analysis based on age and you see the same thing,\u201d Zandi told Fortune. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty top-heavy. If you look at the distribution of wealth or income within the folks that are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, that\u2019s also very skewed. There\u2019s reasons to be nervous there, because you\u2019ve got boomers that are lower income, that are living on the edge, [boomers] of middle income, that are making it by\u2014and when i say income, I mean income and wealth\u2014so the same concerns we have about the broader income and wealth distribution applies to that group of older Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n Boomers are also a reliable source of cash in markets. They own the vast majority of corporate equities and mutual funds, some $30 trillion as of Q3 2025, according to Fed data<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019re the ones that own the AI stocks, they\u2019re the ones that own the bonds that are being issued by AI companies, they\u2019re very much a big part of the financing source for the AI investment boom,\u201d Zandi added, \u201cNo doubt about it.\u201d<\/p>\n But that comes with a flip side that was highlighted by David Doyle, Macquarie\u2019s head of North America economics. A declining personal savings rate (peaking during COVID at 31.8% and declining to 3.6% as of December 2025\u2014below the historical trend<\/a>) is likely a symptom of boomers spending down their assets during retirement. For their spending to continue, therefore, asset prices and sentiment must remain high.<\/p>\n \u201cIt probably makes the economy more vulnerable to an asset price correction than would have been the case 15 or 20 years ago,\u201d he told Fortune in an exclusive interview. \u201cWhat I\u2019d be concerned about is a scenario, because most baby boomers would have a hedged portfolio \u2026 [is] if you ended up with something like what we had in 2020 to 2022, where equities were correcting and at the same time, bond yields were rising, so bond prices were falling. That\u2019s the kind of scenario that would, I think, have particular negative impacts on Baby Boomer consumption.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Doyle said another factor that could clip the wings of boomers is inflation, which has been sticky. That\u2019s because, unlike their salaried counterparts, boomers\u2019 asset returns aren\u2019t tied to inflation and are therefore more susceptible to declines in the real value of their disposable income. \u201cIf you\u2019re a boomer and you\u2019re not working anymore, you don\u2019t have that offset to any sort of inflation shock,\u201d he warned. \u201cThis could actually start working the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n Labor market safety net<\/p>\n An older generation is also a key motivator behind most job openings in the U.S. right now. The health care sector accounted for the vast majority of new openings last year, which economists widely attribute<\/a> to a growing population aging into a new phase of care needs. Medical professionals previously told Fortune<\/a> the industry is racing to train talent in the specialties needed to care for an older population. <\/p>\n This has been compounded by the fact that net immigration in the U.S. has begun to decline and will continue to do so, according to Census Bureau data<\/a>, while the industry relies heavily on immigrant labor. <\/p>\n